Ow Report

Many players have been injured this week, goalies especially. Here’s a review of the injuries and what they may lead too.Philadelphia goalie Robert Esche injured his knee in a collison with teammate Simon Gagne during Monday’s game with Tampa Bay. Esche joins Jeff Hackett on the injured list leaving Philly virtually goalie-less. It now appears that Bobby Clarke will have to deal for a goaltender much sooner than priviously thought.

The Philadelphia Inquierer suggests that Martin Biron, Olaf Klozig, Nikolai Khabibulin, and Manny Fernadez may all be avaliable. They join Sean Burke, who has been rumored to be going to Philly for some time now.

Maple Leafs savior Eddie Belfour now joins the ever-growing list of injuries in Toronto. Belfour injured his back and is expected to miss up to a week. Trevor Kidd and Mikeal Tellqvist will man the pipes during Crazy Eddie’s abscence. This means that Trevor Kidd if off the market for atleast a week, if he was ever on it to begin with. He was rumored to be moved to a team seeking a veteran back-up. Kidd has been decent during his limited appearence and may bring some interest later this season.

Belfour joins Tom Fitzgerald, Joe Nieuwendyk, Alex Mogilny, Wade Belak and Mikeal Renberg on the injured list. Darcy Tucker is expected back for tonights game against the Hawks. With Nieuwy out for a while perhaps the Leafs will call up Harold Druken or Clarke Wilm to replace him. Don’t expect the Leafs to go out and make a trade.

Columbus phemon Rick Nash has been sidelined with bruised foot. Nash did not accompany the Jackets on thier recent road-trip. Nash’s injury may prevent him from playing in the All-Star game on Sunday. An annoucement is expected by this week.

New York Rags center Eric Lindros is out indefiantley after suffering a cncussion from a hit Jason Doig. Lindros claims he feels well, and has stopped feeling Post-Concussion symptoms. “Everything is going along the way the doctors thought it would,” Lindros tells the New York Times. “I’ve been doing a lot of resting. (Monday) was my first day out of the house.” Apparentley Lindros was a shut-in last week until he met with a specialist in Montreal. Big E will be in attendence when the Rags retire Mike Richter’s jersey, who retired after a concusion. Ironic.

Claude Lapointe is cleared to return to the Flyers after passing the NHL’s substance abuse policy. This leads me to believe the Flyers have a log-jam at forward and will attempt to trade someone for the already mentioned goalie.

Thats all for now. Keep those injury bugs coming.

30 Responses to Ow Report

Lindros, sidelined indefinitely, sustained the eight concussion of his career — and sixth in the past four years — last Wednesday night in New York’s 2-1 loss to Washington when he took a hard hit from Jason Doig in the second period. Lindros said Doig’s hit was clean.

So it looks like the Mikster is the only person who feels the Doig hit on Lindros was ill intended.

I don’t know if you left it out on purpose or just don’t follow all teams. But Ottawa lost Spezza to an unknown amount of time, as well as Chara left the game against the Leafs and they are still unsure about his status.

For a team that was already rumoured to be looking to add player this could have an impact.

Sure it was a clean hit, but that doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do. There is a fine line between throwing a huge hit and intent to injure. Just because you have the opportunity, doesn’t mean it’s always necessary to hit someone that hard. Doig threw a “head hunter” hit, which isn’t illegal per se, but is definitely frowned upon by players…(a la Scott Stevens)

The Canucks have also lost Arvedson for six weesk to maybe the season. He was really their only hope of getting consistent secondary scoring from within. I belive with Lindgren, Cooke, Jovo, and Arvedson out for periods of time now is the time to bring someone in to shore up the offense.

This has prompted one minor deal thus far. You see, it’s much more difficult to trade when you might need it if you don’t have gobs of money to throw at the problem. Though I doubt that any one deal would have helped much. The lineup from one game to the next was always different, chances are one more change wouldn’t have helped much either way.

And as such, Atlanta’s chances of the playoffs are swirling the bowl as we speak.

I am not saying that players should hit a player any less because of medical history….I am saying is that these kind of hits should not be allowed. Head hunter hits are banned in the NFL, the NHL should take steps to do the same. Too many talented careers being ended by concussions.

As a Philly fan I’ve witnessed most of Lindro’s interesting career. This man has taken his lumps. Kasparaitus got him, Stevens got him, now Doig has gotten him. Heck Lindros got a concussion when he hit a Tampa Bay player a few years back.

Trevor Kidd has been horrible, save one game this season. He almost single handedly lost the game to the Rangers that thankfully Mats ended in overtime. He pretty much lost us a game against Chicago last night, he kept it well out of hand by letting in untimely goals, and is nothing more than a dissapointment. If we want to beat Ottawa again tomorrow, they better take my advice and PLAY TELLQVIST. He’s the future goaltender of this team, and should Eddie retire after this year (his contract is up), he is our number one. For some reason though, he remains out of the big leagues. Also, if anyone wants Kidd, they would have to be thick in the head, he is slow, his reflexes are shot, hes got nothing left.

Well, obviously someone didn’t watch the 2002 World Championships. Tellqvist stood on his head and almost single-handedly stole the gold medal from Canada. Hes ready to play and will be great once he finally gets the job. He could have even taken over after we lost CuJo, we just would have had one bad season. Make no mistake, barring a stupid trade, he is this team’s next goaltender, and he’ll be damn good.

The hit was clean and was so bad due to Big E reaching for the puck with his head down, not beacuse Doig’s hit was that hard.

Any hit has a potential for injuring a player the only way to be sure is to eliminate hitting. I am sorry but that sounds like figure skating with a puck, not hockey.

You people that debate hit annoy the hell out of me because you have lost focus as to what the game is about: Hard hits, fast skating, great stick handling and power, overall that makes it the fastest and greatest game on the planet!!